The Chance That Becomes an Inevitability
by FridayFrige
Summary: Alicia takes a moment to look back, and moves ahead.


**The Chance That Becomes an Inevitability**

**Author: **FridayFrige

**Rating: ** "T" (reference attempted suicide in the game)

**Pairing: **RufusxAlicia

**WARNING: Many spoilers!**

Once again they were in the fields of Asgard where grass swayed like water on the ocean and flowers sparkled as their petals were lost into the air. The white puffs blew up all around them as they crossed like a snow flurry working in a reversed motion. Setbacks had been encountered, but there was the fact that Alicia and Rufus were still miraculously in each other's company; and that Odin was now dead, though the manner in which this came about was horrific.

Since the showdown at the top of Yggdrassil, things had grown strangely calm. Up until now, Alicia's feet had been moving her without thought, pushing onward without turning back or thinking about what had transpired. Now, Alicia's feet came to a halt.

"Rufus," she said softly, and he turned to face her; silent but looking at her with a confused grimace. She smiled to see the multitude of flower petals hopelessly caught in his hair. He noticed it the moment her eyes glanced to it and started batting at the pesky things, working in vain against the wind which seemed intent on embarrassing him.

It wasn't until he sighed and gave up that Alicia decided to go ahead and say the thing she had been thinking about saying. "I'm sorry," she said to him in a deeply apologetic tone. He looked up again, even more confused now than before. "Earlier when I shouted at you," she explained more clearly, rubbing the tips of her fingers together.

"Uh..." From the lost expression, Alicia could clearly see that Rufus was thinking back, trying to remember when exactly this was with little luck. "What do you mean?"

"In the forest, just before we met Rousallier," Alicia explained. She noticed Rufus's expression turn dark and bitter as she mentioned the name. It wasn't the same look of annoyance and distrust as before. This was more regretful, sad, and worried her even more. "When you nearly pulled off your ring," she clarified, moving on from the subject which seemed tender, though she did not know why. Something to do with elves, probably.

"Oh, that?" Rufus answered quickly with the sort of awkward laugh that he often used to try and alleviate a tense situation. He scratched the back of his head and then shrugged. "You had a right to yell, I was acting like an idiot. I uh.. had just forgotten about it..."

"But I understand now," Alicia insisted, now lacing her fingers together. "I was so upset, even angry at you for acting in such a dramatic way, like your life was worth nothing. Like I could just... _watch_ you flail around until your life had ended!"

"Okay, okay," Rufus groaned. "We have firmly established that I'm an idiot."

"Sorry," Alicia apologized again, realizing that she was getting a little bit mad just thinking about it. "I understand it now, so I'm sorry that I reacted so strongly. I suppose it's just a good thing that we were interrupted..."

Rufus turned his shoulder to her, making it appear that he was scoping out the landscape. She suspected, however, that he was hiding his face from her. "You understand it, huh?" he said. "Would you mind explaining it to me, then? Because I have no clue."

Alicia smiled and suppressed a small laugh. Then the light in her eyes faded and she began to feel a heaviness in her heart. He held her hands close to her chest, clasping her palm over her precious good luck charm. "When you told me to go on my own... I couldn't do it either. And when I thought that you were gone, I just gave up, because..." She crossed her chest with her arms and turned her face down in shame. "I'm so weak," she said. "I've been acting stronger... I've been as strong as I could be without Silmeria, but I--"

"You were tired," Rufus cut her off, refusing to let her self-criticism go any farther. She looked up to find him looking at her with a grin. "You can't tell here because time is stagnant, but we've been on the move for days now. That's all there is to it. You've been through a lot of stress." Then he looked up at the sky, turning his face up to the light shining from the break in the clouds. "If that isn't the understatement of the century," he chuckled. "But hey, that's what I'm here for."

Now it was Alicia's turn to stare back at him with a blank look in her eyes. "Oh?"

He smiled at her again. "Yeah, I guess we're both pretty good at keeping each other from killing ourselves."

Alicia tried not to smile, but she couldn't help it. Her smile grew into a full, teeth-flashing grin. Soon she was laughing, leaving Rufus confused again. "That's--" Alicia began to say. "That's really sad."

"Then why are you laughing about it?" he responded, unable to keep from chuckling himself. By the time they recovered, Alicia found Rufus's arm on her shoulder gently pulling her forward. "Let's try to stay alive just a little bit longer."

"At least until we can be with Silmeria again," Alicia agreed. "But..." and she began to giggle again. "Aren't you sort of... dead already?"

Rufus removed his hand and began to walk again, leading the way. "Aren't you sort of _un_dead?"

"Yeah," Alicia laughed as she followed him. "We are both living on borrowed time."

Rufus frowned. "I suppose you're right."

She walked very close to him, just shy of her shoulder rubbing against his arm. She could feel his warmth radiate from him, his soul bound safely now to a physical form. "At least we were able to laugh together one more time," she said quietly.

"Yeah," he agreed. "At least there's that."


End file.
